As such, we e are thrilled to introduce the Nosto Customer Community, designed exclusively for our valued clients to enhance their journey with us.

How does this benefit me, as a Nosto client?

The Nosto Customer Community offers a supportive network where customers can connect with industry peers, access valuable resources, and stay informed about the latest Nosto updates and trends. Through this community, customers can collaborate, learn, and ultimately enhance their experience with Nosto’s platform, empowering them to achieve their e-commerce goals more effectively.

Let’s delve into the resources and opportunities the Nosto Community brings to the table:

Nosto Insiders
A dedicated Slack channel, called Nosto Insiders, to connect with industry peers, stay updated, and find inspiration.

Nosto Customer Academy
The Nosto Customer Academy, to master Nosto’s platform with on-demand product training, thought leadership, and strategic guidance.

Monthly newsletter
Our monthly customer newsletter highlights product updates, events, new content pieces, and more.

Help Center
Our Help Center, for advice on topics such as how to get started, product FAQs, and more.

If you’re already a client with Nosto you can join the Slack channel, subscribe to our newsletter, and enroll in the Nosto Customer Academy to get more out of the Nosto platform! To join, please contact your Customer Success Manager or Community Manager for an invitation.

The post Introducing the Nosto Customer Community: Elevating our Clients’ Experience with us appeared first on Nosto.

The economic pendulum is on the downswing, and that’s put pressure on a lot of businesses. Pressure to reign in budgets, maintain growth and, in some cases, reduce headcount. 

Times are tough, which begs the question, ‘How the hell can I generate more with less?’. They say necessity is the mother of invention… but don’t worry, you needn’t morph into Nikola Tesla on your lunch break! For Marketers, answer’s actually pretty simple: customer content. Or ‘user-generated content’ if you prefer the technical term. 

Replacing or reducing your reliance upon some of the more expensive sources of content with UGC can not only save you money without compromising quality, but is likely to bring you better results. In fact, there are over 25 different metrics UGC can influence. 

That’s why 1000s of companies have already invested in UGC. And they’re not only reaping financial and performance benefits, but are presenting their brand in a more authentic way. This has the effect of retaining existing customers and attracting new ones (don’t just take it from us!).

Now, let’s talk specifics on how you can be using UGC to make and save you money.

1. Undertake a content audit

Taking a long, hard look at where you’re currently spending money is an essential first step to saving it. You probably do this anyway, but taking a closer look may expose potential areas of over-spending and opportunities to pare back in places. 

Some common areas your content dollars will be going:

• Internal teams
• Agencies
• Stock photography (think Getty or Shutterstock)
• Professional photographers and videographers
• Influencers

Get a little forensic and do some proper calculations:

1. How much money are you spending on each source
2. How much content are you getting from each source 
3. Calculate an average cost per content item for each source

Whatever that cost per unit is, it’s going to be more than the cost of a piece of UGC—and you’ll be surprised by how much! 

Our team can run a free content audit for you to highlight where and how you can get more bang for your buck.

2. Let AI choose the right content for you

Of course, manually discovering, curating, rights managing, and displaying UGC takes time, but that’s where UGC solutions come in. One thing to note, is that any platform worth its salt will use artificial intelligence to make your workflows more efficient and drive results. You’ll want a solution that uses:

Visual AI

Platforms that use visual AI can identify attributes within UGC (e.g. ‘beach’) and automatically apply tags to it, making it quicker to organize and analyze. Visual AI can also spot additional, visually-similar UGC.

Predictive AI

Solutions with predictive AI capabilities can find high-performing UGC and recommend additional UGC they predict will also perform based on that. Predictive AI can also intuitively suggest additional search queries related to those you regularly input, e.g. ‘summer’, ‘sun’

Harnessing the power of AI in such ways will save you a ton of time—and time is money. You can then deploy this saved time into other parts of your marketing activity.

If your team could save 20 hours a week/80 hours a month/960 hours a year, there’s so much you could do with that time.

Moreover, AI will help you make more informed choices around content that will drive better outcomes, which means more conversions that help your bottom line.

3. Drive more leads from your ad dollars

UGC is proven to perform better than other content types, and it’s no different when it comes to paid ads. Air France, as discussed in the video linked above, saw a 4% uplift in CTR when using UGC for their creative, while 56% of consumers say the types of content they most want to see from brands are user-generated photos and videos. If it isn’t already, now’s the time to get UGC in your ad creative!

Looking to save money? It’s going to help you ratchet down your ad spend without harming results. Air France reduced their CPA by 9% by using UGC as creative in their ad campaigns. 

Think about that cost saving in a budget of $1m…

4. Place UGC on your product pages

Strategically placed UGC engages shoppers and gives them confidence that existing customers have had a good experience with your product. We call this social proof, and social proof at the point of purchase drives conversions. So, if you’re an ecommerce brand, you want to be getting UGC on your product pages.

80% of consumers say they’d be more likely to purchase a product from an online store if its website had photos and videos from real customers.

This also begs the question of not doing it, and the potential ramifications. A recent study showed that 58% of consumers have left an ecommerce store without purchasing because the site didn’t contain any customer reviews or photos. Give shoppers what they need to convert: UGC.

5. Incentivise your most passionate followers to become your army of content creators

We all know about influencers. Those people with crazy-big social followings who get paid to spruik products. Essentially, they’re another form of paid advertising, and only 9% of consumers say they actually ‘influence’ their purchasing decisions. You know it, I know it, and the people see through it. And as Bob Marley said ‘You can’t fool all the people all the time’.

Instead of paying people who don’t organically support your brand to create content, why not reward your loyal fans and advocates who’ll happily create it for you?

There are plenty of ways to incentivize your brand advocates, including: 

• Discount vouchers
• Free product sampling
• Competitions
• Recognition through featuring their content on your social channels or your website
• Exclusive ‘advocate-only’ physical or virtual events

As well as being one hell of a lot cheaper, this is a strategy that rewards your passionate customers and nurtures their loyalty, gathers authentic content that performs better, and forms a reliable source of content creaters for you to regularly tap into. 

If you’re looking for a new technology to help you make and save money through UGC, surprise surprise, we know of a good one!

The post How UGC can help you save and make money  appeared first on Nosto.

During 2020, with mandated lockdowns, brick-and-mortar stores shuttering and people suddenly stuck in their homes, both brands and consumers had to quickly shift daily routines and habits. ​​This caused consumers to form new habits—accelerating social and online shopping trends that have been on the rise for years.

After over a year of drastic change, we decided to take the temperature of the consumer market as it stands today and how it’s likely to look going forward.

In our newly released data report, we surveyed over 2,000 consumers across the U.S., UK and Australia to learn how their online shopping and social media behaviors have changed and what they value and seek most from today’s brands. Their responses reveal important consumer behavior stats that can help brands navigate the post-pandemic market to better meet the needs of today’s shoppers.

These are some of the key trends we identified:

Online shopping growth is here to stay

In 2020, McKinsey ran a consumer sentiment study that revealed more people expected to make portions of their purchases online post-COVID.

This holds true in our report, with 67 percent of consumers saying their online purchasing increased since the start of the pandemic. In fact, 27 percent of people say their online shopping has increased a lot.

Not only do people report making more online purchases, but they also plan to maintain their newly elevated eCommerce shopping habits with 91 percent saying they’re likely to continue purchasing more items online in the future—and 52 percent saying they’re very likely to do so.

Another earlier report by NetElixir found that 73 percent of consumers have an average to a high level of comfort buying from a new brand online. In those we surveyed, 59 percent report having purchased from new brands since the pandemic started—75 percent of which say they’re likely to continue purchasing from those new brands in the future.

People are creating & consuming more content on social platforms

Last year, we saw stat after stat on how consumer behavior was reflecting higher levels of social media usage. eMarketers found that up to 51 percent of adults were using social media at higher rates during the pandemic. Additionally:

• Instagram saw a 70 percent increase in live viewing in the early days of the pandemic
• YouTube usage went up 15.3 percent
• Daily usage of TikTok increased 15.4 percent

Our report upholds that COVID-19 inspired a change in people’s social media habits. Across all regions and age groups, 72 percent report that the time they spend on social media has increased since the start of the global pandemic. With Gen Z this number is even higher, with 79 percent saying their social media time increased and 46 percent saying it’s increased a lot.

As the amount of time people spend on social networks has grown, so has the quantity of content people post. A good portion of respondents (41 percent) say that the frequency in which they post to social media has increased since the start of the pandemic—with Millennials’ social media posting habits increasing slightly more (43 percent) than the average.

Shoppers increasingly seek authentic & personalized experiences from today’s brands

This is one of the most important insights gained from our report on consumer behavior stats. The overwhelming majority of consumers (88 percent) say authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support—with 50 percent saying authenticity is very important to them.

Yet, in consumers’ eyes, today’s brands don’t seem to be delivering. Our report revealed that 83 percent of consumers believe retailers need to provide more authentic shopping experiences to customers like them⁠—indicating there is still plenty of opportunity for brands to grow here (and even get ahead of their competition).

But which content resonates as authentic? People are 3.1x more likely to say user-generated content (UGC) is authentic compared to brand-created content and 5.9x more likely to say it’s the most authentic compared to influencer content.

In addition to authenticity, 70 percent of consumers say it’s important for brands to provide them with a personalized experience—up from 67 percent in 2019.

Brands making committed efforts to provide more relevant and personal online shopping experiences will be strongly rewarded by consumers. In fact, 72 percent of people say they are more likely to purchase from a brand if it can consistently provide them with a more personalized experience.

UGC heavily influences purchasing decisions and inspires action among consumers

Our report shows UGC to be 8.7x more impactful than influencer content and 6.6x more influential than branded content in consumers’ eyes—with 79 percent of people saying user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions.

In addition, 56 percent of consumers say they’re more influenced by images and videos from social media when online shopping now than they were before the pandemic. This is especially true for Gen Z shoppers, 61 percent of whom say UGC is more influential to them post-COVID-19.

People also desire UGC as a reference point when purchasing something online; enough that 72 percent say it’s the content they most want to see on eCommerce sites and

58 percent report having left an eCommerce store without purchasing because the website didn’t include customer reviews or photos. This trend is even bigger with Gen Z (64 percent) and Millennials (60 percent).

Looking to the future, brands should focus on building communities

Our report on consumer behavior stats found that shoppers will reward brands that invite them to take part in creator communities. After all, UGC is born from a place of real passion and excitement and can act as a digital form of word-of-mouth.

Some brands have started taking that extra step to form communities of their passionate customers. When asked how interested they’d be in participating in this type of community, 62 percent of consumers—and 65 percent of Gen Z—say they would be likely to join an advocate community to actively create content for a brand they purchased from.

Loyalty is another key benefit of having a creator community. When people feel like they’re part of a brand, they’re much more inclined to remain loyal. In fact, 61 percent of consumers—and 65 percent of Gen Z—say they would be more loyal and more likely to buy from a brand if they were invited to take part in a customer advocate community.

Conclusion

We’re excited to share these latest consumer behavior stats with our audience of marketers, and the trends featured above are just a portion of the interesting insights from our latest data report.

For the full report, complete with generational breakdowns and deeper dives into specific industry data (fashion, beauty, homegoods, etc.), you can get your free copy here and learn how to better inspire and convert shoppers in the current consumer landscape.

The post Consumer Behavior Stats 2021: The Post-Pandemic Shift in Online Shopping Habit appeared first on Nosto.

Gone are the days where consumers blindly accept content the way it’s been traditionally served. Instead, customers are now demanding more authenticity, and they want personalized online experiences to match. Acknowledging this shift in consumer content attitudes is crucial for brands if they want to get content marketing right — and getting content right can make a huge impact on turning prospects into customers.

As marketing strategies ebb and flow, user-generated content stays effective. For context, we put together a list of UGC trends and statistics that emphasize its importance.

The importance of authenticity is (still) rising

• 90% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support (up from 86% in 2017). (Stackla)
• 83% marketers agree that authenticity is very important to their brands. (Stackla)
• 61% of marketers said authenticity is what makes content marketing most effective. (Stackla)
• 79% of people say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions. (Stackla)

Consumers aren’t as swayed by influencer marketing campaigns as marketers think

• Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content when making a purchasing decision. (Stackla)
• Only 8% of consumers say influencer-created content highly impacts their purchasing decisions — down 23% from 2017. (Stackla)
• Yet, North American marketers spent more than $1 billion on influencers last year. (Ad Age)
• And, 49% of marketers are planning to increase their investment in influencer marketing in 2019. (Stackla)

UGC enables personalized customer experiences at scale

• 67% of consumers (73% of Gen Z and 70% of Millennials) say it’s important for brands to provide them with a personalized experience. (Stackla)
• 92% of marketers believe their brands deliver personalized experiences to customers — however, 45% of consumers agreed that the majority of brands they interact with provide personalized experiences, 14% flatly disagreed and another 41% neither agreed nor disagreed. (Stackla)
• 95% of marketers report that personalized emails have improved their email open rates. (Socialnomics)
• 55% of customers look forward to discounts and offers specially tailored for them. (Socialnomics)

Millennials are professional content creators and consumers

• Millennials (ages 25 and above) are the biggest content drivers — contributing over 70% of all UGC. (DMNews)
• Millennials spend 18 hours per day with media, and 30% of that time is spent looking at user-generated media. (Business2Community)
• Millennials believe that UGC is 35% more memorable than other media. (Business2Community)
• Only 1% of Millennials say a compelling advertisement would make them trust a brand more. (Crowdtap)

Consumers are excited to share the content they create

• 89% of people would post about a positive travel destination experience. (Stackla)
• 85% of people would post about a positive restaurant dining experience. (Stackla)
• 65% of people would post about a positive health or beauty product experience. (Stackla)
• 62% of people would post about a new car. (Stackla)

UGC enables successful video marketing

• 45% of people watch over an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos every week. (SEMRush)
• 56% of consumers say UGC photos and videos are the content they most want to see from brands. (Stackla)
• On video platforms like YouTube, UGC fan videos get 10x more views than brand content. (ReelSEO)
• Engagement increases by 28% when consumers can view a mixture of user-generated product videos and official brand authored content. (SEMRush)

UGC increases visitor time on website

• Visitors to websites that include UGC galleries spend 90% more time on the site. (Salesforce)
• UGC increases conversions by 10% when included in an online purchase path. (Salesforce)
• Sites with featured UGC saw a 20% increase in return visitors. (SocialToaster)
• Leading Hotels of the World doubled their time on site by featuring UGC on their webpages. (Stackla)

UGC optimizes email marketing click-through-rates

• 77% of consumers prefer email for marketing communications. (Square2Marketing)
• UGC drives a 73% increase in email click-through-rates. (Salesforce)
• When an ad has social context, it drives 50% more recall and 35% higher online sales lift. (ZDNet)
• Amazfit increased their email click-through rates by 8% by leveraging UGC. (Stackla)
• Stackla customers have seen a 29% uplift in sales by featuring UGC in email marketing campaigns. (Stackla)

Implementing UGC across social media channels humanizes a brand

• An average of 60 million images are uploaded to Instagram every day. (Adweek)
• Over 50% of people said they create content at least once daily, with 23% saying that they create more frequently — 2 to 5 times per day. (Crowdtap)
• 45% of people will unfollow a brand if they do too much self-promotion. (Venngage)
• UGC posts shared to social channels see a 28% higher engagement rate than standard brand posts. (SocialToaster)
• Social campaigns that incorporate UGC see a 50% lift in engagement. (Salesforce)
• User-generated content featuring a brand drove 6.9x higher engagement than brand-generated content on Facebook. (Mavrck)
• 51% of consumers say they’d be more likely to engage with and/or purchase from a brand if it shared their photo, video or social post across its marketing channels. (Stackla)

Putting UGC in advertisements increases engagement

• Ads with UGC generate 5x greater click-through-rates. (Salesforce)
• 90% of B2C brands say Facebook ads are a regular part of their paid social media strategy, with 57% planning to increase their use of Facebook ads in the near future. (Social Media Today)
• Toyota increased their Facebook ad engagement by 440% using UGC. (Stackla)

The statistics are clear. Where branded content recites information, user-generated content invites engagement.  Where stock photography gets glazed over, user-generated content inspires action. Where influencer content seems staged and exhausted, user-generated content is genuine and influential.

Brands that leverage user-generated content can improve their content strategy across all of these channels and more. As we’ve said before, 2019 is the year of user-generated content. Don’t fall behind without it!

The post 43 Statistics About User-Generated Content You Need to Know appeared first on Nosto.

1. Why User-Generated Content?
2. 8 Brand User-Generated Content Examples
3. Nike
4. Asos
5. SheIn
6. Starbucks
7. Canon
8. Lush Cosmetics
9. Trek Bikes
10. Capella Hotels & Resorts
11. User-Generated Content Ideas
12. Social Media
13. UGC Contest
14. Website
15. Make it Shoppable
16. Product Pages
17. Creator Community
18. Conclusion

Most people know about user-generated content (UGC), and how marketing teams are increasingly using it to make their branding more authentic and relatable.

However, when it comes to dreaming up a UGC strategy, figuring out how to best put this kind of content to good use can leave some marketers scratching their heads.

In this post, we feature hallmark user-generated content examples from big brands and explain why each strategy is effective. Seeing the many ways brands choose to use UGC for their marketing should help give you some inspiration on how to make UGC an effective part of your brand’s marketing strategy.

Why User-Generated Content?

First, let’s touch on why user-generated content is becoming increasingly popular among brands both big and small.

In our latest data report, 83 percent of consumers say they believe retailers need to provide them with more authentic shopping experiences, and 59 percent of consumers say they find user-generated content to be the most authentic.

What’s more, 79 percent of people say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions, while a mere 9 percent say influencer content impacts purchasing decisions.

To put it simply, consumers know what content and experiences they want from brands. In the same report, 72 percent of consumers say real customer photos and videos are the content they most want to see on eCommerce sites, and 80 percent say they would be more likely to purchase a product from an online store if its website had photos and videos from real customers.

Not only is UGC authentic and proven to inspire consumers to take real action, but it is also highly cost-effective. UGC is abundant, and people generate it freely—all brands have to do is request permissions.

User-generated content has consistently proven to be the kind of content that resonates the most with the lifestyles of real people and enables brands to deliver more personalized and relevant shopping experiences at scale.

8 brand user-generated content examples

These are user-generated content examples from well-known brands using it to amplify their marketing efforts. Learn how brands have leveraged UGC to serve more than just one purpose—from creating more inspiration and engagement to bringing together a community to drive purchases.

Nike

Nike is one of the first big brands to really harness the power of the content generated by its customers and followers.

#JustDoIt

We all know this hashtag. #JustDoIt has over 15 million Instagram posts and even more across other social media networks. The #JustDoIt campaign is the primary evergreen way Nike generates user-generated content around its brand.

PHOTOid Campaign

In 2017 Nike created one of its first UGC campaigns. They created a tool that allowed customers to submit their favorite Instagram photos. Then, Nike used the color scheme from those uploaded photos to create customized images of their Air Max shoes. Users were encouraged to share the custom image online with the #airmax hashtag—generating over 100,000 shoe images with the tool in the first week.

This campaign provided a fun way for people to create personalized versions of a Nike product and empowered followers to be creators too. All while growing awareness and engagement around the Nike brand.

Better For It Campaign

In one of its most impactful and targeted campaigns to date, Nike again tapped into the power of its audience, this time to create a social media movement dedicated to its women’s division. Nike created the #betterforit hashtag and prompted women to share their workout, health and fitness goals. To this day, the hashtag has garnered hundreds of thousands of posts.

This UGC campaign was a way for Nike to perpetuate its brand values of encouraging athleticism. Just two months after the campaign launched, Nike’s women’s division saw a 20 percent lift.

Asos

Asos is an eCommerce website that powers its Instagram feed with real customers using its hashtag #AsSeenOnMe.

For many, Asos’ feeds are a refreshing mix of content from real-life customers donning Asos apparel and accessories peppered with branded content. In doing this, Asos secures free advertising and can present a more authentic image of the brand that its audience finds more relatable and authentic.

Plus, ASOS makes the user journey even easier by including searchable product codes within the captions so browsers can quickly transform into active shoppers and buyers.

SheIn

Across its TikTok and Youtube channels, SheIn is a fashion brand that has become well-known for its “clothing hauls”—a user-generated content strategy where real customers show off the clothes they bought on SheIn. This tactic has helped the brand form a global community around its broad product offerings.

The reason SheIn clothing hauls are one of the brand’s most successful marketing strategies is that consumers get to see the SheIn clothes on real customers as they try them on and review them.

SheIn also promotes the hashtag #SHEINgals to incentivize customers to share SheIn outfit ensembles on social media for a chance to be featured in its social media feeds. Like Asos, SheIn makes it easy for users to track the specific product featured in a social post by having searchable product numbers in every caption.

Starbucks

The user-generated content marketing campaigns Starbucks has run over the years have become pretty popular. One notable one is its annual #RedCup contest, where the brand encourages customers to post photos on social media of themselves with their holiday-themed red Starbucks cups. What’s great about this campaign is that people are free to get creative with it.

In 2015, Starbucks enhanced this campaign by creating a Christmas tree of red Starbucks cups at King’s Cross Station in London—prompting many people to take selfies in front of the gingerbread-scented red cup display.

Curating all the #RedCup contest photos with Stackla, Starbucks then displayed those engaging images in digital-out-of-home (DooH) billboards throughout London’s railway stations to inspire commuters to purchase a cup as they walked by.

This is a great example of a UGC campaign that one brand made multi-sensory—crossing the boundary between the real and virtual worlds to give audiences multiple ways to participate.

Canon

Canon Australia put UGC at the heart of its digital strategy to bring together its community of novice and professional photographers.

The Canon team wanted to focus its marketing efforts on the post-purchase experiences of its customers since they knew how influential peer-to-peer product recommendations can be.

Jensen Baptista, Senior Manager at Canon Australia, said, “What triggered the rise of user-generated content within Canon Australia was our decision to stop focusing on our products, and start focusing on the people who use them.”

Canon placed an inspiration page on its site to showcase the content of its passionate community and to tell the myriad stories behind the photographs and film. They have a form on their website inviting content creators to upload their submissions.

Canon has also run UGC photo challenges to keep its audiences engaged. One of note is its Take the LEAP challenge in which they created 30 briefs—a new one for each day of the month—which prompted thousands of people to share their content and creativity.

What was great about this challenge was that it didn’t require someone to have a Canon camera in order to participate. The goal was to simply get people thinking creatively about photography to stir their interest in the medium since most have a smartphone they can use.

Canon Australia’s Instagram feed is fed primarily by user-generated content. As of this writing, their social media strategy is largely UGC-driven.

Lush Cosmetics

Because they are socially and environmentally conscious, Lush Cosmetics has a highly enthusiastic fan base of customers that regularly share content.

Their unique product packaging and line of natural bath bombs that turn people’s bathtubs into multicolor rainbows are the kind of thing that is ripe for social media sharing.

Lush decided to capitalize on its Instagram-ready products by letting their customers, aptly known as ‘Lushies,’ speak for the brand. They completely replaced their traditional advertising with high-performing user-generated visuals of their products, even prominently featuring shoppable UGC images on their product detail pages.

This makes Lush a more consumer-driven brand and has the added bonus of building engagement and community around its products. UGC also helps Lush deliver personalized content experiences at scale, as they defer to their audience to generate a diverse array of content to serve the right customers at the right time.

Lush also works to build strong relationships with happy customers through its ambassador program called #FirstLookLushies. Here they acknowledge and encourage those already creating content for the brand to continue engaging.

Sabine Schwirtz, former community manager at LUSH Cosmetics North America, said, “The voice of the brand is not always the same as the voice of the customers. We’re moving closer to times where a brand’s identity is the same as their customers’ identity.”

Trek Bikes

Trek Bicycle uses UGC to help promote a cause. They created a campaign called #GoByBike to help inspire collective action—inspiring people to use bicycles to combat the challenge of climate change.

Trek Bicycle encouraged people to participate in the competition by featuring UGC from its community on the website and social media channels including Instagram Stories.

Haley Gustafson, Social Media Manager at Trek Bicycle, said, “We realized that people are more likely to implement a behavior if they see other people—especially people like themselves—participating and taking that action.”

When COVID-19 hit, it gave even more fuel to the campaign as people were looking for safe ways to be outside and drew even greater awareness around sustainability and the benefits of biking.

After only seven weeks of the #GoByBike campaign, Trek Bikes saw 17,000 uses of the hashtag and received the rights to over 2,000 unique pieces of UGC from Instagram alone.

Capella Hotels & Resorts

Capella Hotels and Resorts decided to use UGC across not just one, but several of its marketing touchpoints—and it paid off. Their main goal with UGC was to craft more authentic online experiences to build brand awareness and increase bookings. They integrated user-generated visuals into their email, social media channels and website and saw a 40 percent increase in online revenue.

Terence Wu, Capella’s Corporate Director of eCommerce & Digital Marketing, said the focus of luxury hotels was becoming less about the ornate decorations and fancy amenities and “more about the moments these properties create for families and people to get together.”

They encouraged guests to use the branded #CapellaCandids hashtag on social media, which they then used to create an inspiration page on the website.

They also implemented UGC from specific hotel stays into the respective email newsletters for those properties to give people a more authentic visual experience of those destinations.

For its family packages, Capella also replaced professional imagery with UGC to make those marketing campaigns more relatable, resulting in a 4.5x increase in revenue for those packages.

In total, by using the Stackla platform, Capella was able to aggregate over 30,000 pieces of UGC and add over 4,000 visuals to their asset library—providing them with plenty of content to use in multiple omnichannel marketing campaigns.

User-Generated Content Ideas for Your Marketing

In addition to the above examples, here is a list of go-to user-generated content ideas to inspire your marketing.

Flood your social media channels with customer and fan content for higher engagement

If you’re just starting out with UGC, social media is a great channel to experiment with first. You can begin by mixing in some customer visuals with your other content and see what your audience responds to most. Are you getting more likes on UGC posts? Are people commenting or sharing these visuals more? Does the engagement level differ depending on the social platforms (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)?

Featuring UGC throughout your social media channels can be a great precursor to identifying how effective a wider UGC strategy across your other marketing materials might be.

Generate UGC with a contest

Contests and competitions are a superb way to generate a lot of UGC for your brand and get people engaged. Contests also create a lot of hype and excitement, which can increase brand awareness. It’s a win-win-win strategy that many brands have seen success with.

Typically, any UGC contest will include an original dedicated hashtag that people can use to participate, and that your brand can use to gather and choose from the best visuals submitted.

Another way to have people participate is by asking them to @mention or tag your brand in their photos, or by simply adding a direct upload form to your website. Don’t forget to have a plan for rewarding your winners! It could be a giveaway, a free trip or the chance to have the winning photo featured across your marketing channels.

Want to use all the photos your audience submits throughout your contest? Build content permissions into the terms and conditions of the contest participation. This gives you automatic rights to use all the content fans share with you.

Add inspiration and authenticity to your website pages

Give your website pages a little more pizazz and authenticity by placing real customer UGC on key web pages. Many brands choose to use a UGC widget on top pages. For example, Stackla customer iCanvas, an art eCommerce company, invites customers to upload their photos of products they purchased or share them on social with the #iCanvas hashtag to be featured on the home page. 

Having customer UGC placed on your website, specifically in the form of a gallery, has shown to consistently improve time on page, bounce rate and on-site engagement (people clicking on the image to discover more or clicking the ‘load more’ button).

Allow people to click-to-buy with shoppable UGC

Make your UGC even more impactful by enabling a click-to-buy feature on real customer images featuring a specific product.

In our data report, 71 percent of people say they would be more likely to buy from an online store if it made it easy to buy an item directly from an inspirational image.

Since UGC is some of the most authentic and popular content among consumers, taking those visuals to the next level by making them shoppable could give your brand a boost in sales.

Furthermore, making an inspirational UGC shoppable gives consumers what they want by creating a more seamless shopping experience. Shortening the pathway to purchase not only makes it easier on consumers but can increase your brand’s conversation rates, too.

Give your product pages added social proof

At this point, consumers expect to see real customer UGC when they go to a product detail page. Since you can’t feel, try or test items when shopping online, seeing photos and reading reviews from others who have purchased a certain product helps people in their decision to buy. Displaying social proof alongside professional product images can help instill trust, which can both increase conversions and decrease return rates.

You can identify UGC of specific products shared on the Internet and you can also invite people to upload photos of the product they purchased after they’ve made the transaction to increase the amount of social proof you include on product pages.

Build a community of creators

Gather together a group of champions for your brand. You can do this by identifying those that have already published content celebrating your products and invite those engaged people to join your brand community.

In our latest data report, 65 percent of Gen Z say they would be likely to join a customer advocacy group to actively help create content for brands they buy from. People can develop closer ties with your brand when they are invited to play a part in creating it. Not only does this encourage greater loyalty from your most enthusiastic customers, but it also creates new ways for that enthusiasm to spill over for more people to see.

Plus, once you have a program all set up for your brand advocates, you can then give them prompts to create more specific UGC to continue filling your need for content.

Conclusion

We hope these user-generated content examples from big brands prove inspirational to your marketing strategy. UGC is a great way to establish trust in your brand, engage existing followers, grow your audiences and increase your chances of someone making a purchase. So, don’t be afraid to take chances and experiment with it!

If you’re interested in leveling up your UGC game with a robust tool to be your one-stop shop for all things UGC, fill out a demo form below to see what Stackla can do for your brand.

The post User-Generated Content Examples To Inspire Your Marketing appeared first on Nosto.

Of course, we all know these social media platforms are built for just that; sharing and socializing. But did you ever consider that your brand can develop a dedicated, engaged digital community in a similar way? We’ll talk you through how to do this and provide some tips below for how to build your brand’s own community of creators.

Why now is the time for your brand to build a community of creators

It’s human nature to seek out community. Community offers us that 1-to-1 human interaction we all crave, gives us inspiration and helps to motivate us. Most of us belong to more than one kind of community, whether that’s our family circle, friend group, a sports league, the companies we work for or even an online group or forum.

Increasingly, people are finding more niche communities online to engage with—ones that align with a specific interest they have, i.e. a local dog lovers group, a group discussing the best nontoxic beauty products, or a group interested in sustainable travel. These communities tend to be more highly engaged because of their passion in a specific topic where they feel their voice is heard.

With people’s interests being more nuanced than ever, that makes now a great time for your brand to be proactive and build a community of creators around your products and services that align with an untapped group of eager individuals.

Building a community of creators: the starting point

First off, there is no wrong way to bring together a community of creators. Whatever gets people banded together, talking about your products and generating content is a good thing. Typically, these are the ways that brands go about either discovering or creating a brand community:

1. Find an existing community that is already engaged in topics related to your product or service. For example, if you’re a sustainable outdoor gear brand, you might want to find a forum of people who are already discussing sustainability in outdoor apparel or similar topics. This opens the door for people who are already engaged and listening to become potential customers and even passionate content creators for your business.

2. Organize and engage an existing brand fanbase. Some brands are lucky enough to already have people out there who are creating great content around their products or asking how they can get involved. If this is true for your brand, it’s a good idea to capitalize on that enthusiasm by proactively bringing together those individuals and inventing fun ways for them to create content for you. For example, sending out community newsletters and offering reward incentives to boost engagement and sales.

3. Don’t have a semblance of a brand community yet? No problem. Starting from the beginning may not put you as ahead as the previous two methods, but it is still possible. You could begin by creating a framework to support a community of creators for your brand and start inviting current customers to be part of it. From there, incentivize those people to tell their own networks about it. You can also begin to promote this special opportunity for people to be part of your brand through owned channels like email, website, blog and social media.

Best practices for cultivating a community of creators

We’ve worked with several brands that have built a community of creators around their products and services. From that experience, here are some best practices we have to offer for other brands interested in this strategy:

Lead by values

People in groups often share the same values. If a group of people comes together around fashion, those values might be related to creativity and self-expression through clothing. For groups interested in outdoor products, those values might be the importance of exercise, spending time outside and communing with nature.

Try to identify the values at the core of not just what you want your brand to represent, but also the values that your audience and customers relate to most. If you’re not sure what those are, try sending out a general survey or even ask those who have engaged with or purchased from your brand directly. You could even send out a prompt on your most active media channel asking people for their comments (which also happens to be a great way to cultivate community).

Put your customer at the heart of your brand

Something that’s hard for brands to remember is that it should be the people, not the products, at the center of your brand. A product should help improve the lives of your customers whether that’s providing them with a pleasant experience, filling an important gap to help them get where they want to be or contributing to their overall wellbeing.

Spend time thinking about how you can ensure you’re not only serving your community, but representing them as well by giving them a voice in your brand, sharing the user-generated content (UGC) they create.

Tap into existing creator markets

Like we mentioned above, it can help when there are already groups of people out there engaging with the topics and products that align closely with your brand. Spend some time researching and locating where these people interact. For example, a Reddit forum, an email newsletter you could partner with, a Facebook or LinkedIn group or even events (whether live or virtual). Get involved in those conversations and invite people to join your community of creators.

Tell your community what content you want them to create

Of course, one of the main objectives in nurturing a community of creators is to get them to create content for you. Proactively getting your community members to create UGC not only showcases to others how fun it is to be involved with your brand, but it can also provide valuable social proof via images and videos of how your product works in the real world.

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“[Our] goal is to humanize our brands by building communities. We want new and well-seasoned riders to feel like they belong with us. We want to showcase more of the content from our actual customers to show the beautiful diversity of our riders and so other people see that and feel like they could be having an experience like that too. UGC inspires people to do things differently and that’s what we want to encourage.” – Bellanis Pereira, Global Asset Factory & Social Media Lead at BRP

You don’t have to wait for people in your community to create content for you. Send out an email or post something on social media telling people about a fun campaign they can be part of and ask them to create content around it. Or, promote the feeling of exclusivity by giving only those in your community a free sample of a new product that hasn’t launched yet in exchange for them uploading their own fun content about that product. You could even then use this material for the product launch; tagging the individuals with the best UGC.

Stackla’s feature, Organic Influencers, is made for this type of communication. Your team can draft up a ‘Creative Brief’ and send it out to your community list to ask people to generate their own content. Don’t be afraid to get specific in your ask to acquire the visuals you most want people to create and others to see from your brand.

Don’t keep it to just one group or category

This is especially true if you happen to be a larger brand with several product ranges or sub-brands. Remember that the more niche the community, the higher levels of engagement you’re likely to see.

You don’t have to have only one dedicated community of creators—you can have many. If you’re a beauty company with several product types, you could create a community around skincare and another around makeup. This helps you to be more personalized in your approach to cultivating your brand communities. It will also encourage people in those groups to come up with content for those specific topics and products.

Encourage your creators to share and get creative!

Building trust and relationships are what community is all about. Encourage your followers to share an experience or story of theirs and how that ties in with your brand. Ask them to share personal stories on how a certain item added value to their life or why they chose to be interested in a particular hobby. These genuine stories will resonate with and engage other people in a meaningful way.

One of our customers, Michael Hill, an international jewelry brand, shared the touching story of two sets of couples that had to postpone their weddings because of the COVID-19 pandemic. By showing real photos of the private backyard ceremonies their customers had, it helped forge more personal connections with their audiences.

Don’t just get your creators to make content for you, but also be clear in letting them know that their personal stories create value for other community members. Finally, find creative ways to publish those stories out for the rest of your audience to see—whether that be in community newsletters, in your ads, on your Instagram Stories or on your blog.

Examples of brand-led creator communities

Here are some more examples of how brands we’ve worked with cultivated a community of creators:

Little Bellies

Little Bellies is a highly popular and fast-growing baby and kids food brand with a small budget. They have several different product ranges, all of which required unique content that the brand wasn’t able to generate 100 percent on its own.

They relied on their excited customers (i.e. parents) to generate lots of adorable content for Little Bellies’ ranges—using Stackla’s Organic Influencers tool to discover, connect with and motivate these happy customers to become their own dedicated community of creators.

Georgie Scott, Marketing Manager for DKSH Grocery Connect, said “UGC works well for us because parents are really discerning about food products for their children. The fact that we are able to access and publish content from real parents, mostly mothers, who are recommending our products to other mothers makes this strategy quite powerful.”

Bringing together their community of enthusiastic parents helped Little Bellies create tons of authentic UGC and provide valuable social proof.

LUSH Cosmetics

LUSH Cosmetics’ shoppers are not your typical customers. Their brand fans, whom they call “Lushies,” are loyal customers who connect with the brand not just because of their products, but also for their commitment to ethical and sustainable campaigns.

LUSH relied on this already engaged community to share the content their customers were creating across their social channels and web pages. When they did this, they nurtured a personalized experience for those individual content creators, but also grew their brand through the authentic voices that were already giving them attention online.

Sabine Schwirtz, former Community Manager at LUSH Cosmetics North America, said in a case study, “I think many marketers who have been in the industry for a long time are worried about maintaining the voice of the brand,” she said. “But, the voice of the brand is not always the same as the voice of the customers. We’re moving closer to times where a brand’s identity is the same as their customers’ identity.”

Canon

Canon was the perfect brand use case to launch a community of creators. After all, their products are the very tools in which their photographer customers create high-quality images and videos.

Canon has a special ‘Stories’ page on their website showcasing the amazing ways their customers are using their products to create compelling images and unique stories around the world. The page is meant to serve as inspiration for their audience and other potential customers.

Canon has also dedicated 80 percent of their content on their Canon Australia Instagram channel to display the varied and diverse UGC from their customers.

Conclusion

If you think now is the time to begin building a community of creators from scratch, or bring together your already-existing engaged fanbase, we’d love to help you in that endeavor.

We built our Organic Influencers tool for the specific purpose of making it easier than ever for brands to connect with their customers and collect the best content from their creator communities. Fill out a demo form below and we’ll walk you through how Organic Influencers can help you get the engagement and conversions you’re seeking by helping you be proactive in your UGC strategy.

The post Why it’s Time for Your Brand to Build a Community of Creators appeared first on Nosto.

If you look at some of the top online platforms out there, you will notice a common denominator—each one of them runs on user-generated content to grow to be as large as they are.

But you don’t have to be Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest to take full advantage of this “growth hack.”

In this post, we will explain the content categories that fall under UGC, but most importantly, how user-generated content can have a positive impact on your overall SEO and search rankings.

What is user-generated content SEO?

Let’s say that you wrote a great piece of content. It is 5,000 words, keyword-rich and applies all the best SEO strategies. What happens next is that Googlebot will crawl that content, decide how good of a score it gets on a virtual E-A-T scale (Expertise, Authority and Trust), then index it accordingly.

Now imagine the same post that you created, but every day there are around 200 new words and even some user images and videos published in the comments—full of new keywords, links and engaging content.

Your post will significantly expand and at the same time, it will start to cover the topic in a much broader sense. When Googlebot crawls it again, the post is now much richer than when it was first published so your rankings can improve.

Your site is experiencing natural content growth, and best of all, it costs you next to nothing. This is the main advantage that user-generated content SEO brings to the table.

Sure, one or two comments will not move the needle, but if you apply some of the UGC tips that we share in this post, the implication for your SERP (search engine results pages) growth will be significant.

What types of user-generated content are there?

When your visitors are active on your site, they are helping you twofold. They not only improve the experience of other users but also send positive signals to search engines.

Here are some of the usual types of UGC:

Posts

Visitors can write content on a wide range of topics, and since they are chasing a goal of their own, they are doing their best to produce a good post (assuming they are not spammers).

If your UGC environment is set up correctly, contributors will prepare detailed, well-researched posts on the topics that are truly interesting to your other readers and in line with your niche.

Testimonials and reviews

G2, Capterra, Yelp and Trustpilot are just a few of the UGC sites built on reviews and testimonials.

This type of UGC is beneficial to you from two perspectives. The first one is of course the obvious increase in content size and everything that comes with it.

But the second one is even more important—it is Google E-A-T. Testimonials and reviews are one of the main contributors to your “karma” with Google.

Having a positive rating on the mentioned sites or BBB (Better Business Bureau), Google Business and others can notably improve your authority and standing with this search engine to help you to achieve higher SEO rankings.

Q&A

Quora is an example of how much can be achieved with a UGC strategy that has an element of Q&A (questions and answers).

But a Q&A section can also be a great addition to your website. Apart from generating new content, the questions visitors pose will shed light on issues and problems that you might not even have known your audience had.

Forums

If you give people a platform to discuss various topics, they will do so very actively. You just need to steer the discussion in the right direction. For example, Shopify is leveraging forums UGC to their advantage:

You might be surprised by the number of users who are prepared to help others or correct them if they are wrong.

Comments

An article can be significantly expanded by having a comments section at the bottom. Allowing your site visitors to ignite a discussion or even cover the aspects of the topics that you did not write about helps you expand on the topics you prioritize for your business.

A side product of comments is social proof. When users see that there is a lively discussion under a post, it increases the overall authority and strengths of the post content—as they see that many others found that useful (or took time from their day to expand on your idea).

Images and videos

People are visual creatures, so allowing your users to submit images and videos will add so much extra rich quality to the content.

Visual content can do everything from entertaining people to providing more relatable content to your users and even communicate difficult or complex concepts.

You can go as far as leveraging your organic influencers and curating their content on your page for increased engagement. After all, users prefer UGC images as they view them as much more genuine and relatable than the content created by brands.

There are many elements that can help you expand your content and have a positive impact on your SEO. Let’s take a closer look at where this impact comes from.

How does user-generated content improve SEO?

Search engine optimization is about incremental improvements that eventually add up to a big boost in organic traffic. While it is hard to make something 100 percent better, it is much easier to improve 10 things by increments of 10 percent.

This is exactly what user-generated content brings to the table. Here are several notable improvements that will all help elevate your site to the next level.

New content

While content marketing is the key to organic traffic, it is also frequently a bottleneck of many websites’ growth.

Let’s assume that you want to significantly increase the number of indexed keywords and you need to publish 100,000 words this year. That is around 2,000 words a week which seems easy on paper but quite challenging in reality.

Allowing your visitors to generate user content will boost the amount of newly published words. That translates into more keywords that search engines can index, therefore increasing the probability that some of them will meet Google’s knowledge graph and ranking criteria that it has for your site, and it will rank your keywords in good SERP.

Even allowing something seemingly so small as comments may significantly increase the amount of content under your posts. While some users may leave just a couple of words, others will write whole essays commenting, criticizing or expanding on the initial idea.

Long-tail keywords

Let’s assume that you run a website that writes about golf and you are doing keyword research to build your content calendar.

Since “How to” keywords are a good pick for a traffic post, you decide to research it further, and using the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool you see these results:

Chances are that out of all these keywords you would write an article on “how to swing a golf club” and other keywords would be put on your content list to… never be seen again.

After all, you want to invest your time and resources into the content with the highest impact. Only companies with big content teams can allow themselves to write on every relevant keyword no matter how small the traffic is or how long it will take to rank.

Let UGC help you. Users will fill those long-tail-keyword gaps in your content. In their contributions, they will use variations of the primary keyword and also include secondary keywords—completely naturally!

Link structure

We are not talking about the spammy links in the comments, but rather the actual outgoing links to various authority sites.

When a visitor is creating a comment and they want to make sure that their argument is supported by proof—they will link to another site.

To prevent spam you could make all the UGC links “no-follow”, but still, it creates a more natural outgoing links profile than if you would do it yourself.

Bounce rate

User-generated content gives you a chance to create natural internal links. Here is how:

Somebody comments on your post, so you reply and add a link to another part of your website where the topic is explained in more detail.

This will decrease the bounce rate, meaning that users will not leave right after checking out the landing page, but will instead click on your site’s internal links and look through other content as well.

Time on site

Another user-generated content SEO impact is the increased time that visitors spend on your site. User-generated posts, comments, images and videos all improve the engagement rate of the new visitors and they make sure that they stay on the site longer.

While Google confirmed it only indirectly, they do monitor the time spent on site as one of the ranking criteria. So every second which your audience spends browsing UGC is adding to your SEO success.

Social media mentions

The more social buzz surrounds your site — the better. User-generated content increases your social media shares. Since it is your visitors who are sharing your links on their social profiles, your site is being exposed to a new audience that you couldn’t reach before.

While social shares do not influence your rankings, brand exposure does. The more times your website is mentioned, the more various ranking signals you are sending to search engines.

In addition to that, you can proactively share UGC on social media, filling up your social content calendar to the brim!

User-generated content’s greatest SEO pros

As you may have noticed, there is a common denominator to all the ways user content generation influences SEO—it is the natural growth of content (with emphasis on natural).

When you are writing content for your site, you are focused on rankings. You have the right keyword ratios, the correct amount of links, titles and URLs in sync. But still, you may end up with a post that is written more for Google than for your readers.

Visitors do not have a ranking goal in mind when submitting UGC. Their text, keyword usage, links and more are all completely organic. While Google, of course, likes to see a well-optimized post, the use of natural language is also important.

User-generated content’s cons

We discussed all the positive impacts that user-generated content will have on your SEO, but as with everything else, there is also a negative side.

When you are allowing users to post their content, most of them will be rational and post relevant stuff, which is in line with a well-mannered code of conduct. However, there will be those few who will try to take advantage of the situation by posting spam or vulgarities.

The only way to minimize these encounters is to establish clear rules and control over the UGC that is posted on your site.

Content Reviews — Review all UGC before publishing. While it may slow down the natural content flow and might decrease the engagement, it will assure that nothing detrimental gets published on your site.

Keyword Filters — Blacklist several keywords that are mostly associated with spam, or at least make sure that content with those keywords first goes under review.

UGC Moderators — If you are planning to heavily rely on user-generated content SEO, having a UGC moderator can come in handy. That person would monitor the newly published content and make sure that everything is according to your rulebook.

Captcha — This is the first line of defense when aiming for UGC as it will make sure that all completely nonsense posts and comments are filtered out.

Summary

User-generated content can be a valuable addition to your SEO, resulting in organic traffic growth.

Giving your visitors a chance to contribute will allow you to significantly expand your content, while at the same time building links and social mentions.

The advantages of UGC do not end there, as the variety of written content, videos, images and points of view increases, so does the engagement rate which will not go unnoticed by the search engines.

To have user content generation SEO as a part of your overall strategy, you will have to establish some ground rules to prevent abuse of your content policies. But it is a minor issue compared to all the advantages that UGC SEO will bring you!

The post How Can User-Generated Content Improve Your SEO? appeared first on Nosto.

Only 35 percent of B2C marketers said they planned to use it back in 2016 after the bombshell effect of Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke campaign. However, more than half (56 percent) of consumers say UGC photos and videos are the kind of content they most want to see from brands, and they’re creating that content every day.

Why?

People trust people more than they trust brands. The social media posts, videos, images, and product reviews created by customers rather than marketers are what will get your brand more benefits and revenue than polished professional visuals can. Unique and trustworthy, UGC garners more engagement and can even bring more leads as well. When given the choice, 65 percent of consumers said they were more likely to trust a brand that posted a UGC image over a stock photo.

But what’s important with UGC is ensuring that you’re using it right.

In this article, you’ll find the crucial reasons why you should implement UGC on your social media channels. We’ll also provide best practices for working with user-generated content to convert consumers into brand advocates.

Why use UGC on social media for your marketing efforts

There are two phenomena: micro-influencers and social commerce.

While influencer marketing is still on the rise, now brands favor working with micro- or even nano-influencers rather than celebrities and people with millions of followers. Marketers notice that micro-influencers on social media drive 7x more engagement, and 80 percent of users admit they’re more likely to buy something if their favorite influencer endorses a product during live streams.

As a result, UGC from these people on social media can give your brand a super boost.

More than that, about 56 percent of Gen Z use social media today to search for information about brands. Social commerce calls the shots, and UGC now works at all points of the social media marketing cycle. Different types of user-generated content help users discover and explore your brand, get engaged, buy from you and even influence other users’ purchase decisions by sharing feedback with their followers.

Long story short, UGC on social media does most of the marketing job for you by:

• Promoting your brand authenticity. (90 percent of consumers say authenticity is essential when deciding what brand to support, and they are 2.4x more likely to consider UGC authentic compared to brand-created content.)
• Boosting your brand’s credibility and trust. (92 percent of consumers believe recommendations from family and friends, and 70 percent trust other online consumers’ opinions.)
• Making people buy (or not) from you. (79 percent of people admit that UGC impacts their purchase decisions a lot, working as powerful social proof of how happy customers are with your product or service.)
• Helping your content rank higher: Customer reviews expand SEO efforts.
  Giving your audience a voice by making them feel part of the community and that their opinion matters.

And last but not least for a marketer:

UGC on social media is cost-effective. Your audience (customers, website visitors, social followers) freely generate original content for you every day in the form of social posts, comments, videos, reviews, testimonials, etc. Taking advantage of UGC saves you tons of time and budget when it comes to content planning and creation!

The trick is to implement strategies with UGC on social media that will help you see the biggest possible impact.

Best practices to sharing UGC on social media

Now for the most exciting and (finally!) tactical part:

These are the seven best practices for working with UGC on social media that can help you turn customers into brand advocates and get a wider audience engaged with your marketing message.

1. Know your goals

The truth is that while many brands are eager to implement UGC as part of their content marketing strategy, few actually have a plan or goals for implementing it.

The best practice of sharing UGC on social media would be to set specific goals and guidelines beforehand. For example, what do you want to get from a particular user-generated content campaign? With clear goals at hand, you’ll be able to organize UGC in the most optimal way possible for the desired outcome.

Example: Jennifer Taylor (a furniture store)

This brand uses UGC pictures from social media profiles on their product page—saving time on content creation and engaging customers with more authentic imagery. Those willing to have their content featured were prompted to tag their content with #jentayhome.

Source

Possible goals include:

• Build brand trust by creating a memorable brand identity, awareness, and credibility from your own customers.
• Drive discoverability by getting a wide audience of passionate customers to create and tag content about your brand.
• Get higher engagement by collaborating with relevant influencers who have an active and loyal audience.
• Educate your audience by answering the most common questions about your brand (influencers can help here too.)
• Increase conversions by collecting and displaying customer reviews that include pictures.
• Get high amounts of original content and save time on its creation.

2. Know what to share on certain channels

It’s not only about where your audience “lives” and where your brand advocates have the most influence. The best practice would be to share UGC based on your goals and its format.

Facebook is excellent for sharing customer videos, while Instagram is the preferred platform for high-quality images. Twitter would be the perfect place for sharing some witty quotes from customer testimonials. LinkedIn is the place for communicating your message via case studies from customers or thoughtful articles from niche influencers and opinion leaders.

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Remember to include relevant hashtags to increase visibility and reach, and consider @ mentions to credit content creators (more on this later). Master the art of social media outreach to build partnerships with influencers and involve them in your UGC campaigns.

3. Tell the audience what you want

When organizing your UGC campaign on social media, make it clear for the audience what it is you want them to do. Decide on specific content types that align with your brand and share the proper guidelines for users to consider.

The best practice would be to become as specific as possible: Check your brand rules, hashtags, and regulations toward UGC twice to avoid getting unwanted content.

Also, do your best to hold to the course:

If you need a specific UGC format or style, don’t revise the guidelines after a few days. Users may need some time to start sharing the content with you, and your rush or inconsistency could lead to a negative user experience.

Motivate the audience to share their UGC with you: Organize fun giveaways or contests, ask them to post content and tag you, promise to feature their content in your feed, etc.

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This leads us to the next best practice when sharing UGC on social media:

4. Be original, entertaining and deliver value to the audience

Pay attention to how you present users’ works on social media. As many brands are using UGC as part of their social media marketing strategy, the competition is enormous. You need to stand apart from the crowd.

Try analyzing the competition: How do they use UGC to serve their target audience? What can you do that’s unique yet still relevant to your brand mission and marketing goals?

Think of something that could help you start building a community so your followers feel they belong to something bigger than a simple tag or a repost. Follow the lead of brands like Apple with their Shot on iPhone campaign or GoPro with their annual GoPro Creator Summit:

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Each year GoPro invites filmmakers, photographers, and videographers to celebrate their passion. The only way to get to the ‘Summit’ is to share a #GoProCreatorSummit selfie. This UGC helps brands reinforce their values, display the raw passion of their audience and strengthen an overall sense of community.

Remember that UGC social media doesn’t always have to be purely product-related. Encourage people to be as creative as possible while aligning with your brand values and aesthetic to grow and encourage the wider community.

For example, you can try this new UGC trend if it’s relevant to your business: reposting your followers’ tweets to your Instagram feed.

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Another point to consider:

Be strategic and considerable when sharing UGC on social media. This content should have a purpose and bring value to your audience. Let it inspire, highlight your product, showcase reviews and help followers decide on their choice from you.

One of the best practices here would be to save UGC content from customers and repost it to Instagram Stories for others to see your product used by real people. Not only would doing this help prospects find the right option, but it would also allow you to promote your brand’s authenticity and increase the level of personalization.

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5. Offer something in return

To inspire followers and motivate them to share UGC with you, do your best to offer them something in return. Most brands organize social media contests with prizes, and it’s a good idea by all means. However, don’t get too focused on it.

According to a survey from Offerpop, only 32 percent of consumers create and share UGC to win a prize. The other 60 percent do that to get more likes or be featured by their favorite brand.

So, the best practice here would be to develop a branded hashtag for your audience to use so you could find relevant UGC quickly and regularly share the best contributions—giving credit to creators. Better yet, encourage your followers to tag or @mention your brand in their posts whenever relevant. The more you feature UGC on social media, the more users will be motivated to tag your brand.

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But even when offering a branded hashtag for users to use, make sure to follow this next practice:

6. Ask permission

When people tag your brand, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are waiting for you to use their content. Hashtags often live on their own, so it would be a good idea to ask the original poster for permission to re-share their content on your brand page.

Not only does this help you avoid copyright concerns, but it’s also your chance to show appreciation to the content owner for sharing content about your brand. It’s a sure-fire way to turn followers into brand advocates and promote brand loyalty.

When sharing user-generated content on your social channels, always give clear credit to the creator. Tag the account and indicate whether you use their words, visuals, or both.

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7. Analyze and measure your efforts

As well as any other of your marketing efforts, UGC campaigns on social media should be analyzed and measured so you can understand if they work to help you reach desired goals.

With social media analysis and social listening tools at hand, you’ll track the overall engagement with UGC and gain insights into the valuable metrics such as likes, saves, comments, shares, hashtags consumers use to interact with your brand, and more.

You’ll be able to analyze your efforts this way and adjust them accordingly to serve your audience better.

Takeaways

Now that you know these tips and have a list of tricks to sharing your user-generated content, it’s time to put them into practice. While working with UGC on social media takes some planning it has the potential to bring tons of benefits to your brand when executed effectively.

Know your goals, be original, provide value to your audience, remember to credit them, and always analyze your UGC campaigns to understand the results and benchmark progress. Take UGC on social media as an opportunity to engage with your audience and build a strong community around your brand.

The post 7 Best Practices to Sharing UGC on Your Brand’s Social Media Channels appeared first on Nosto.

People aren’t as committed to immersing themselves in the finer points of a web article as they would be in any other format. They tend to skim through text, looking for a specific phrase or something that will catch their eye. This means they’re less likely to read the entire contents of a web page. On average, you can expect a visitor to read between 20-28 percent of the total words published on a page.

If you’re a company that’s invested a lot of money in creating meaningful content, this could be problematic. Considering how most people interact with online content, is there a way to derive real value from what you’ve published on your company’s site?

There sure is!

The solution: better readability

There’s a reason Google launched its featured snippets, which brings key information readers are looking for to the forefront of Google’s search page. People want information that directly answers a question they have, and they want it fast.

Help people get more out of your web content by tailoring it to be easily readable and digestible Understand that you’re facing very real limitations as far as attention spans go and focus on making your content more accessible.

Here are some tips on publishing highly digestible online content that will engage your readership.

1. Write list-based articles

Lists don’t just make great, clickable headlines—they’re also a surefire way to make your web content easily digestible.

Our eyes and brains are drawn to pieces of content that stand out from surrounding information. Headers that combine words and numbers pique our interest and capture attention.

When we see a paragraph header with a number in it, we feel comforted by the additional context. Numbers provide a sense of progress and a way to map content around a specific topic.

Take this Havoc Shield blog post as an example. They are a brand that often deals with complex topics related to cybersecurity. Making highly technical content digestible doesn’t seem like an easy thing to do, but writing a blog post in list format is a great way to start.

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2. Provide an anchor-linked table of contents

After introducing readers to the topic with a well-written intro, many blogs choose to summarize the post’s content with an anchor-linked table of contents.

Blog publishers who take this approach prioritize their readers’ time over the “preciousness” of their content. They know that people are going to skim the piece, looking for specific information.

Summarizing a post’s content with a UI element listing content sections and providing quick links to each shows that you respect your readers’ time.

This tactic allows readers to see which part of a post is going to answer their question—providing a convenient mechanism to skip straight to it.

A good brand example of how to elegantly incorporate a table of contents into your blog posts is this post on Skillcrush. The online learning platform has made them a staple in all of their blogs. This one below is on the topic of ‘finding your dream job.’

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3. Embrace content chunking

“Chunking” is the process of breaking long sections of text into more digestible portions. There are many ways to do this, but the ultimate goal of chunking is to avoid overwhelming the reader with an intimidating wall of text.

These are three tried-and-tested methods of creating digestible chunked content your readers will love.

• Section headings

Don’t be shy with section headings. Where there is a logical grouping of ideas and concepts, give the section a meaningful name that’s easy for readers to understand.

In addition to helping readers skim content more effectively, headings also break text into smaller, more digestible pieces.

To see this tactic executed well, take a look at this post from EachNight. The post makes excellent use of content section headers to avoid huge walls of text and make the content more accessible.

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• Imagery

Some content marketing specialists suggest inserting an image every 150 words in your blog posts. I was a little shocked when I saw this suggestion from Neil Patel, but I’ve since noticed some blogs that use this tactic effectively.

Using imagery will help separate text so it doesn’t become overwhelming for people to read and keeps them engaged. Any image or video you insert should further support the text above and below it—adding value to the topic you’re trying to explain. Be mindful of the visual elements you use in a given blog so that they enhance the topic at hand instead of distracting from it.

• Bulleted lists

Bulleted lists are an underutilized method of breaking written content into digestible portions.

These lists are optimal for instances when you’re presenting a sequence of brief ideas. When it doesn’t make sense to write paragraphs on each of them, consider using a bulleted list.

Any blog post should make use of bulleted lists at least once to communicate points effectively. They’re easy to skim and users appreciate their concise nature. Plus, they do a terrific job of chunking your blog post and making it more digestible.

This blog post from eLearning Industry presents a good example of using bulleted lists effectively:

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4. Write content that’s digestible

At the risk of coming across like Captain Obvious here, you have to write content that is easily digestible.

I’m referring specifically to things like word choices, sentence structure and tone. Here’s a quick guideline of best writing practices when creating digestible content.

• Don’t try to sound clever with fancy words. You’re trying to communicate with people, not give them the impression you’ve swallowed a thesaurus. Use the words you’d use in a professional, friendly conversation.
• Don’t use long sentences. Commas are great for stringing complex ideas together, but try to find a way to do this only when absolutely necessary. Write short, logical sentences that convey a single idea as clearly as possible.
• Use adjectives and adverbs only when it’s necessary to help make your point. Of course, you’re not writing a medical journal, so using descriptive, figurative language is often essential to keep readers engaged. At the same time, your goal with web content isn’t to flaunt your gift for prose.

Some final words

“Better” or “more effective” online writing isn’t the same as great printed writing. While people haven’t entirely forgotten how to appreciate a traditionally well-written piece of content, they have been conditioned to look for value in different ways in digital environments Successful blogs don’t try to fight this fact; they roll with it.

And successful blog writers know that it’s important to empathize with their readers. Often, they’re people who are rushing through their busy day with an overwhelming amount of content at their fingertips. In order to make this reading process easier, you have to write posts that accommodate the inundated reader by making important information easy to find. That’s how you will win over audiences.

The post How to Create Highly Digestible Blog Content That Readers Love appeared first on Nosto.

Today, everyone is taking advantage of these resources to tell stories, share our experiences and get seen on channels like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

As more organizations leverage the power of content marketing to connect with customers, it’s time your business caught up with these evolving trends and made the plunge into video. But how exactly do you make your video strategy more authentic and noticeable than the rest? You should make use of user-generated content (UGC).

In this article, you will learn how to inspire your fans and followers to create user-generated video content affiliated with your company.

What is user-generated content?

User-generated content (UGC) is any content—text, video, images, reviews, etc.—created by your audience. That’s why it’s also known as user-created content (UCC).

This type of content is more effective than ads and engages your target audience better because it is created by customers, for customers. Moreover, search engines also respond well to UGC; 25 percent of search results are links to websites that host user-generated content. Therefore UGC is a powerful way to enhance your marketing strategy.

Brands can even work with influencers and micro-influencers to ask for UGC. They can also entice loyal customers to create video reviews of their products on various social media sites to create a buzz about the brand.

Why is it beneficial to include user-generated video content in your marketing activities?

User-generated videos are a brilliant strategy for brands to adopt. Not only does this type of content cost far less than traditional advertising, but it’s also clearly valued by customers, who are 2.4 times more likely to prefer UGC as it seems more trustworthy and truthful.

In the age of social media and concerns about authenticity, user-generated content can give the audience a more personalized perspective—one that resonates better with them.

Additionally, UGC gives businesses a chance to excite their customers and allows them to be more fun and creative with brand content. Overall, it improves customer engagement and can help speak to an online community of like-minded people.

3 examples of user-generated video content

The challenge with a UGC campaign is getting people motivated enough to participate and create quality content. While there are various strategies, such as introducing contests and offering giveaways, it can be tricky to develop the kind of UGC you want to see. Here are a few great examples of user-generated video content that can help inspire you.

Fenty Beauty

Rihanna’s makeup line, Fenty Beauty, took the industry by a storm with a 100 percent digital campaign that relied heavily on influencer reviews. Fenty Beauty combined reviews and testimonials from trusted Fenty customers to generate videos that discuss their products. This customer-inclusive strategy was successful in getting the brand 10.6 million Instagram followers in the last few years.

Nike

Another example of user-generated videos that work well comes from Nike. The company created their #betterforit campaign to inspire and motivate women to take care of their fitness and health goals.

The campaign includes personal anecdotes from world-class athletes and champions, including track and field star Allyson Felix. Felix embodies the #betterforit campaign through her struggles and goal-setting mentality in training and competition.

The reason for the Nike campaign’s success was the message of body positivity that encouraged women to take care of themselves and shine in the limelight, reiterating Nike’s mission to celebrate and encourage athleticism.

Pampers

Pampers asked their customers to send in videos of their babies in diapers via Facebook. Then, the company curated an adorable campaign using those user-generated videos. Not only was it super-cute to watch, but it also resonated with potential customers (parents), boosting the brand awareness and vitality of the brand.

How to create user-generated video content

There are many ways that brands can get and make use of user-generated content to connect with consumers. Here are a few ideas of how to start a user-generated video campaign, including suggestions of monitoring tools that can measure your campaign’s efficiency and effectiveness. If you want to collaborate with colleagues or clients on videos, I recommend these video collaboration tools.

Giveaways and contests

Holding contests is a great way of building brand awareness and reaching an untapped market segment. It is even more effective because people are usually eager to win prizes, which generates massive traffic for your site.

For example, Eggo (owned by Kelloggs) held a recipe contest for users to submit the different ways they prepare Eggo waffles. Users were asked to post pictures and videos of recipes on various social media platforms, resulting in a tremendous buzz for the brand and strengthening their customer loyalty. The winners (a gingerbread Eggo waffle and spiced pumpkin apple Eggo crumble) received cash prizes and plenty of customer likes and shares on social media.

Create content focused on your customers rather than your product

Remember, user-generated content is about your customers, not your product. When your customers feel ‘seen’, they make more of an effort to give good reviews and generate more online content.

For example, Starbucks created a “Meet Me At Starbucks” campaign, inviting customers to use the hashtag #HowWeMet and tell their stories about the first time they went to Starbucks or when they met someone interesting there. Customers were so excited by the opportunity to share their stories that they took Instagram and Twitter by storm, sending in videos and other instagrammable content.

Engage your audience with visual content

We already know that online written reviews can have a significant impact on people’s purchasing decisions. However, visual content marketing can also help you stand out. By adding UGC visual elements to your website, product detail pages (PDPs) and more, you can show customers how your products would look on them, rather than on a model. Many fashion brands are leveraging their loyal customers and influencers in their UGC strategy by sending them clothes that they review.

This type of campaign’s benefit is that brands can accurately measure what type of content customers are choosing to engage with and what item is being sold the most because of this content.

Conclusion

User-generated video content helps brands seamlessly connect and engage with customers in a unique and authentic way.

Take the time to deeply understand your consumers and their needs, and analyze what content resonates with them. This humanizes your brand and creates a personalized, engaged community that will find value in your products.

The post The Ultimate Guide To User-Generated Video Content appeared first on Nosto.